John Dudley: NFL sends unclear message with Tomlin sanctions

- The $100,000 fine the NFL handed down this week to Steelers coach Mike Tomlin for interfering with a kickoff return in a Thanksgiving night loss to the Ravens was expected and, depending on your perspective, perfectly reasonable.

Clearly, three years after New York Jets assistant coach Sal Alosi's orchestrated sideline trip during a game cost the Jets $100,000 and essentially cost Alosi his job, commissioner Roger Goodell is sending a message that the league doesn't want to have to deal with this scenario again.

The possibility of downgrading or docking the Steelers a draft pick is a murkier issue and much less defensible.

If the NFL is waiting to see whether the play has any bearing on AFC playoff seeding, which could be the case in a points tiebreaker, it should have come right out and said that Wednesday when it announced the sanctions.

No one was injured on the play, the Ravens went on to win the game, and Tomlin was as contrite as could be expected in apologizing during his weekly news conference on Tuesday.

The only way a draft penalty makes sense is if the play somehow enhances the Steelers' playoff chances or diminishes the Ravens'.

Hopefully, that's Goodell's thinking on this, and if that's the case there's no reason to leave that in the shadows.

Anything else sounds like piling on or reacting to public outcry. The NFL should be in the business of neither.

- Mike Wallace said this week he's pretty sure he'll be booed in his return to Heinz Field with the Dolphins on Sunday.

Really, though, Steelers fans should be cheering, because nearly one season into the five-year, $60 million contract Miami gave him last offseason, Wallace clearly hasn't produced anywhere near his projected value.

Wallace's deal is the fourth-richest among wide receivers, behind Calvin Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald and Percy Harvin. The guaranteed portion of the deal ($5.4 million per year) is behind only Johnson's $6.9 million.

But Wallace's numbers are pedestrian. He is tied for 31st in the league in receptions (56), 26th in yards (743), tied for 60th in touchdowns (three) and 50th in yards per catch (13.3) among players with at least 23 receptions.

Emmanuel Sanders, who's playing on a one-year, $2.5 million contract he signed in April, has been only marginally less productive, with 54 catches for 604 yards and four touchdowns.

- The smallest crowd in the brief history of the Bills' series of games in Toronto watched the Atlanta Falcons pull out a 34-31 overtime win in what could only be described as an antiseptic atmosphere.

Among the 38,969 fans were pockets of jerseys representing at least a dozen other NFL teams. Several Falcons players said it felt like a home game at times.

The Bills received about $78 million to play eight games in five years in Toronto as part of the original deal, and an unspecified sum believed to be less than that to re-up earlier this year for five more years.

Team president Russ Brandon said this week the team would look at the deal after the season to make sure it still makes sense. Brandon pointed out the Bills are more than 20,000 tickets short of a sellout for their final home game against the Dolphins on Dec. 22.

There's no question the Bills can use the infusion of cash. But it's come at a steep cost -- five losses in six years in Toronto and incalculable public relations damage among a segment of their fan base.